Mall opponents appeal site approval

Rich Williams with Festival Land Development declined Tuesday to identify the tenants. Pagels, in his appeal, identified them as Lowe's Home Improvement Warehouse and Meijer.

"(Lowe's) was printed in big, black print on the corner of a blueprint I saw," said Pagels. "I've heard Meijer's everywhere. I recall seeing a reference to it by an appraiser who made reference to it in another appraisal report."

Lowe's Companies Inc., headquartered in Wilkesboro, N.C., is the world's second-largest home improvement retailer and the 15th largest retailer in the United States. Grand Rapids-based Meijer's grocery stores are located in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky.

"Very simply, I feel this comes down to a question of whether we continue to have an Alpine Village or whether we have a community dominated by the same people involved with this that were in favor of the (Bagley) casino," said Pagels. "I'd like Gaylord to grow, but not in the fashion it is here."

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At their Dec. 7 meeting, members of the planning commission approved the preliminary site plan with the understanding an alternative to a Johnson Road entrance must be built before the first store can open. Pagels' first objection came in regards to what he characterized as a set of "highly suspect" numbers showing projected traffic increases.

Local engineering firm Wade-Trim provided information to the Northeast Michigan Council of Governments for a county corridor study completed this year. It also provided information to the mall developer in a separate study done in October 1999.

Traffic south of M-32 on Old 27 is expected to increase between 21 and 34 percent in the next 20 years, according to the corridor study, which acknowledges that work on the mall was in progress at the time. Pagels cites a passage from the latter report which uses a 4-percent rate of annual growth for traffic in that area indicating a 119-percent increase over 19 years without the mall.

Pagels also identified in his appeal - filed Friday - problems with the way the planning commission handled its checklist of criteria under chapter 16 of the county's zoning ordinance which deals with special land uses.

"In order to evaluate the shopping center project (they) apparently retained the services of Leslie Sickterman, a community planner employed by Gourdie, Frasier & Associates," he said. "(S)he felt that the mall project failed to meet the special land use standards required by Chapter 16 … based on concerns about stormwater, traffic, continuity and impact and pollution prevention."

Sickterman was unavailable for comment Tuesday but said after the Nov. 22 meeting, "I think if you're paying a lot of attention to the newest movements in community planning you would find this kind of shopping center is frowned upon by the planning community because it isn't pedestrian-friendly. There are a lot of communities that have had to deal with retrofitting a lot of what's going in."

Pagels characterized Wade-Trim's response as "consist(ing) of vague promises to remedy the problems at some point in the future." Developers already are planning to ask the ZBA for a variance to lower the number of required parking spaces.

"We went through it item by item," said planning commission member Richard Carlson. "Timewise what was it, 45 minutes or an hour we spent on that? What I did personally was I used that information with section 16. That information was used." Carlson offered the lone dissenting vote in the Dec. 7 approval, but based his decision on the joint approval of the first two phases. As a member of the ZBA, he will abstain from voting on the appeal due to his conflict of interest.

Zoning Administrator Tacy Herzberg also stated after the Dec. 7 meeting Festival Land Development would have to come back before the planning commission to prove all of the conditions have been met before the special use permit is issued.

"Then they should have another public hearing and they should never have approved it," said Pagels. "What you then say, is, 'Gentlemen, you'll have to come back to us.'"

County offices were closed Tuesday. Zoning Board of Appeals (ZBA) Chairman Richard Sumerix was not surprised the case had been forwarded.

"We kind of expected this," he said. "We went through the same thing with H&D." This will be the third such case considered by the ZBA in the last year, including one for an H&D Inc. gravel operation on North Townline Road and a housing development on Passenheim Road.

"They have to remember, all we can do is look at procedure. We cannot change their decisions," Sumerix continued. "All we look at is the procedure they used. We can't even hear any new information. All we can do is go in and look at the way they handled it."

"In other words, if you completely ignore section 16," said Carlson, "Pagels would certainly have a case."

Pagels acknowledged in his comments the ZBA might not be his last stop. If the Jan. 9 Bagley sewer referendum fails, he noted that might halt the development. The vote will determine whether or not Bagley Township can bond for the $5.4 million needed to fund a sewer initially to serve the mall and nearby businesses.

If the referendum passes, and the ZBA does not overturn the planning commission's ruling, "The next step is simply to file a circuit court action," he said. "I have absolutely no doubt we would succeed at the circuit court level."